Yep, precisely my intention. It's my considered opinion that a tongue-in-cheek Videosift comment intended to highlight the silliness of self-defeating religious impulses is the moral equivalent of anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Islamic, anti-Jewish funeral pickets.>> ^Asmo:
[...] You trying to out-douche the Westboro morons?

Eh, I disrespectfully disagree.>> ^Asmo:
I'm usually right on board with taking pot shots at religious crazies and their god bothering but I think we can cut a guy who was dealing with hideous injuries after such a traumatic experience a little slack for falling back on his faith, regardless of the fact that we don't share it.

"He knows that he has only minutes to climb into his life raft before the freezing ocean kills him. 'I stopped everything; I started praying. I said, God, I need some help.'"

Well, now he has even *less* time to make it into his life raft.

I totally dig these Sagan videos, but they can be slightly misleading: they're often mash-ups, not continuous excerpts, and the editing sometimes introduces implications that aren't found in the books themselves. (This one opens with a few lines from Chapter 5 of Pale Blue Dot, then skips back to a few discontinuous lines from its introductory chapter.)

What a cool dad.

One of the coolest videos I've seen on the Sift. Thanks for posting it.

Imagine if we were always this thankful for (and proactive about) being alive.

That was *really* cool. Thanks.

I couldn't agree more.

@NetRunner, your treatment of Ron Paul is a curious thing to me. You're an intelligent and thoughtful person, as far as I can tell, and yet you seem to be content with fostering political conversations that center on sound bytes and missteps rather than on frank, honest, and direct addresses of issues and ideas. (I'm thinking of your last three Ron Paul videos in particular.) And, like @artician wrote, that sort of approach is as unhelpful as the sensationalistic and sound-byte-driven approach made by many outlets in the mainstream media.
>> ^artician:
[...]

At some point you must know you're just trolling to generate hate for a guy you don't believe in. I don't necessarily believe in him as much as I used to either, but this is silly, and is the exact same childish game that has brought political discourse to the level of the grade-school special-needs-mentality that's pandered around by the mainstream media.

Talk about an effective way of encouraging kids to get involved with science.

To be frank, I think you (and others) are missing the point.

Ron Paul, as I see it, is addressing an obvious problem with a system that would allow medical treatment (early-stage abortion, or the prevention of pregnancy) only for rape victims, namely that you'd have to have a way of turning away (EDIT: and identifying) women who sought abortions for reasons other than rape. He's not suggesting a rubric for doing so (I don't think the interview format would have allowed him to), nor is he making any assumptions about the nature of rape victims or rapists. (Remember: he's a trained obstetrician-gynecologist. I'd bet he knows more about sexual assault than most of us do.) The phrase "honest rape" (yes, a terribly chosen phrase) is part of an attempt to address the problem described above, one which he didn't adequately explain.>> ^peggedbea:

it's like he's imagining this world where women/girls are only raped by absolute strangers. where rape is only actually rape if it occurs in a dark parking lot after a night of womanly shopping. it couldn't really be rape if you know your attacker. it's not really an "honest rape" if the rapist is someone you know socially and therefore have social and emotional ties to and the drama of reporting it would only GREATLY INTENSIFY the trauma of the experience. it's certainly not an "honest rape" if anyone could say "well, what were you doing THERE?" "i guess you shouldnt've been drinking!" "well, why were you dressed like that in the first place?" "what were you doing in the car with him?!?". and you certainly weren't actually raped if your psyche allows you to just internalize the incident, place all of the blame on yourself so that you can avoid the stigma and not have to subject yourself to further pokes and prods, investigations by strangers and 0298502945049490 questions and passive-aggressive blame from the people in your life.
ffffuuuuccckkkk tttthhhhhiissss

Romney's editorial, if anyone's interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html.

Romney and others were clearly wrong about the bailout leading to the demise of the American auto industry. But (and it's an important point, I think) that's not to say that his proposal, namely a "managed bankruptcy," would not have been successful.

The New York Times published a fascinating video about this a few months ago, too:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/11/21/opinion/100000001183275/the-umbrella-man.html

Oh, and I must say: that's some interesting logic you're throwing my way. In defending myself against your claim of "personal attacks," you're calling me slanderous. In other words, it's slanderous of me to defend myself.

Brilliant! Joseph Heller should have used an argument like that in Catch-22.

@NetRunner, you just pulled apart my sentences into pieces that make no sense. That's not how productive conversation works. Go back and (re)read my comment; I think you'll find that it's internally consistent.


Edit:

The part that you pulled out of context, namely this:

"I noticed a number of glaring inaccuracies and biases after the first few sentences, which I made aware to you in my next post. I suggested that the post was amateurish and, at a minimum, certainly not fact-checked. I've been waiting to find more reputable news sources reporting on this issue and as yet have found none."

... was referring to the article you linked to. I'm calling the article inaccurate and biased, not you. Please don't remove my comments from their contexts and misinterpret them—and invite others to do the same.


Second edit:

And, of course, you've removed my original claim of bias in the article from its original context, in which I make clear precisely which points I think are biased and not fact-checked:>> ^aurens:

From your equally informative link: "Ron Paul’s racist politics and affiliations are already well known, being viciously anti-immigrant, anti-abortion and against gay marriage — not to mention having authored the racist 'Ron Paul Papers.'"
Anti-immigrant? Against gay marriage? The author of the "Ron Paul Papers"? I'll leave you to fact-check that stuff. In the meantime, though, you might want to consider reading some more rigorously vetted news sites.
Oh, and those photos appearing as "evidence" of their claims? That's just priceless! Even you must admit it's amateurish.

>> ^NetRunner:

Sure [...]


"So to unpack that, you think Sam Seder is spreading a baseless accusation, and that I deserve to be scolded for repeating it by posting the video. My response was to ask why you were directing your ire at me personally, while giving you the additional details you ostensibly wanted."

Glad you cleared that up (and there's your first—and very telling—misinterpretation).

I was making no judgment of Sam Seder's accusation, nor did I ever call it baseless; I think it remains to be seen whether or not it has merit. I was, however, making a judgment of the *presentation* of his accusation. When you accuse someone of something as serious as racism, it's best to present, along with your claim, the facts that back up your claim. Sam Seder did not do this. In reposting his video without any additional information, you did not do this. That, to me, is worthy of criticism; it suggests a certain kind of opportunism which I find unhelpful on lots of levels.


I responded to the "lack of detail" comment by providing a link which includes the actual e-mail that Anonymous found.

Yes, and I noticed a number of glaring inaccuracies and biases after the first few sentences, which I made aware to you in my next post. I suggested that the post was amateurish and, at a minimum, certainly not fact-checked. I've been waiting to find more reputable news sources reporting on this issue and as yet have found none. One of the reasons, I assume, is that they're looking to confirm some of these accusations, the confirmation of sources being a foundation of trusted journalism.


IMPORTANT: NetRunner, you're doing it again. "Disparage the poster"? "Attacking the messenger"? Suggesting that I called you "dishonest" and "slanderous"? I never accused you of dishonesty, nor did I accuse you of slander, nor have I "attacked" you. And I certainly don't think my comments were disparaging.


It's hard to deal with people saying nasty things about your hero, but this whole strategy of attacking the messenger doesn't change anything.

Who said Ron Paul is my "hero"? I certainly haven't. This from one of my replies to dystopianfuturetoday:

"Ron Paul doesn't have me in some trance-like state of manipulation. I didn't vote for him in the last election, and I don't plan to vote for him this time around. There are *lots* of things about his platform that I outright disagree with, and there are a handful of things that I disagree with so fundamentally (his positions on abortion, climate change, evolution, his religiosity, among others) that I often question why I even bother keeping up with his politics. (The reason: because there are lots of his positions that I *do* agree with, in particular positions that no one else seems even to address.) But this whole racism thing really just peeves me. I mean, for magical Christ's sake, if he's a racist, and if he's in cahoots with white supremacists and Neo-Nazis, then I, more than anyone else, want to read some credible, vetted news stories on the matter, so I can put the issue to bed once and for all. But instead, I keep seeing videos like this one which purport, rather dramatically, so "expose" him in all his shameful glory ... only to be disappointed by the content of the video."

Hardly sounds like hero-worship to me.


Have you read the e-mail yet? Do you have an opinion on the evidence Anonymous uncovered?

I read some of them. In short, I'm skeptical when I see attribution tags like "Here Are Some Emails From Kelso Regarding Racists Working For Ron Paul’s Campaign" and "Here Is An Email From Someone In Ron Paul’s Campaign To Kelso." Who are these supposed campaign workers? How are they connected to Ron Paul? Are they low-level campaigners who work independently of him? Are they his trusted advisors? All of these things matter in the interpretation of this situation. As of now, I've seen no articles that provide enough context to the e-mails, or enough detail about the senders and recipients of the e-mails, to make a judgment one way or the other.